Originally published at: Louisiana Joins Other Red States In Making A Big Show Of Preventing So-Called Non-Citizen Voting
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed an executive order on Monday requiring all Louisiana government agencies that hand out voter registration forms to include a written declaration that non-citizens are prohibited from registering to vote or voting in elections. “The right to vote in United States elections is a privilege that’s reserved for American citizens,” Landry…
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Imagining problems then offering putative solutions that probably wouldn’t solve it even if it was real is an integral part of the authoritarian playbook. Part of the struggle in dealing with these proposals, and one of things that makes it so exhausting, is you have to start by trying to get them to actually offer evidence.
This necessarily involves some recognition that the problem they are really trying to solve is not the problem they have stated which in this case is not non-citizen voting but too many citizens of a certain demographic voting in a way they don’t like.
ETA: this is another pernicious example of what the economist, John Kenneth Galbraith, called “convenient reverse logic.” In a talk to the 1984 graduates of the American University’s College of Public and International Affairs* he outlined its logic: Rather than moving from cause to effect and diagnosis to remedy, a remedy consistent with political interests was identified and then a cause which would make that remedy relevant was identified or, if necessary, invented.
The examples Galbraith used were not surprisingly from the Reagan administration. For example poverty was characterized as lack of motivation and drug abuse rather than the absence of better schools, healthcare, and affirmative action so expanding the drug war was justified. Similarly characterizing unrest in Central America as inspired by outside agitators and communism rather than a history of militarized oligarchies made the sale of military supplies and armed intervention suitable instead of logical but less desirable remedies like pushing for and supporting legal, land and economic reform, etc.
*became a chapter in Galbraith’s 1986 book, A View from the Stands
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This is what you do when you lose, are losing or expect to lose.
You accuse the other side of cheating even before the first pitch is thrown or the first vote cast.
If Trump and Republicans expected to win, they would not be doing this.
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The are also working hard to keep Pookas from voting. Hate it when the six-foot tall rabbits think they can influence our democracy.
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Fixed it for the TPM headline writers.
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Utterly off subject
But I like truth
In this article the author claims chocolate pods are the size of pumpkins. Look at the image. That is about 400 gm Maximum wet weight for a chocolate pod. A simple google search reveals this…
"Characteristics commonly used to define pumpkin include smooth and slightly ribbed skin and deep yellow to orange color, although white, green, and other pumpkin colors also exist. While Cucurbita pepo pumpkins generally weigh between 3 and 8 kilograms (6 and 18 lb), giant pumpkins can exceed a tonne in mass.
Cocoa pods weigh an average of 400 g (14 oz) and each one yields 35 to 40 g (1.2 to 1.4 oz) dried beans; this yield is 9–10% of the total weight in the pod. One person can separate the beans from about 2000 pods per day. The wet beans are then transported to a facility so they can be fermented and dried."
… … … … … … …
bbc news got it wrong. I tried to send a comment to them to point this out yet they would not accept my gently worded commentary saying I was the one with an error. Yet a small pumpkin is five to six times, roughly, the weight of a chocolate pod. bbcnews is the one who is in error. Also chocolate seeds are not sweet. They have no sugar content to begin with. That is added in processing. Biting into a chocolate seed would prove my point to the author. Obviously the author has zero understanding of the subject.
Thank you for letting me vent.
I’ll see myself out now.
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Poor Harvey. Another victim of the war on phantoms.
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From 1980 until 2016 I voted at a church near our house. The people who manned the tables at out precinct were my neighbors. In that time I quote here there were around 3 dozen citizens proprerly registered but trying to vote in the wrong precinct. Maybe a half dozen non-citizens tried by mistake. But the penalty already in place is severe. So non-citizens who understand do not try to vote. This should be a non- issue.
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Forget it Jake. It’s Louisiana.
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But wait – before you go…
You’re welcome!
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You can’t gin up a lie without creating confusion and act as if you’ve unraveled that with a new law… And of course, there has to be proof from a Kangaroo Court to enforce that law as proof of the lie…
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Well now… that ruins my deserts. Why not lighter bars hmmm?? Just dark chocolate eh? Sounds like conspiracy.
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No, but dark chocolate obviously has more cocoa in it. And it varies by source etc. I think Consumer Reports did a study on it. You have to subscribe to read it though, or look it up at the library or something.
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From Consumer Reports:
The researchers found that cacao plants take up cadmium from the soil, with the metal accumulating in cacao beans as the tree grows. That’s similar to how heavy metals contaminate some other foods.
But lead seems to get into cacao after beans are harvested. The researchers found that the metal was typically on the outer shell of the cocoa bean, not in the bean itself. Moreover, lead levels were low soon after beans were picked and removed from pods but increased as beans dried in the sun for days. During that time, lead-filled dust and dirt accumulated on the beans. “We collected beans on the ground that were heavily loaded with lead on the outer shell,” DiBartolomeis says.
Because of the different ways that cadmium and lead get into chocolate, addressing the contamination requires different solutions.
https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-safety/lead-and-cadmium-in-dark-chocolate-a8480295550/
(I don’t know if that will work without a subscription.)
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Where I lived in Mexico it wasn’t just cacao that was grown . Lots of other crops too. What about cadmium and lead in other crops?
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Help me understand this…
The Gutierrez family walks 2000 miles through jungles, deserts…faces smugglers, rapists and thieves along the way.
Just to vote illegally in America.
Yah…right.
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GOP is just another word for stupid.
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Do these idiots not understand that it is virtually impossible to register to vote without providing proof of citizenship? As another posted noting, what they are trying to stop is people voting…for Democrats.
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Uh, concerning that article: What the hell is a concerning level of [toxins]? If they’re going to LCD their language to avoid precision in word meanings, they might at least choose a usage that means something. Is the level alarming? Is it dangerous? Is it sufficient to create a risk of nerve damage with long-term [heavy? average levels of?] consumption? This recent turn in the use of concerning is like a helium balloon: it negates the gravity of whatever it is they’re trying to say.
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Co-authored by Susan Collins perhaps. I’m sure she is concerned.
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